


The Gloaming

by red_river



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jerky Dean, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-13 03:14:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_river/pseuds/red_river
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Have you been abandoned, Sam?” Castiel asked.  Sam ducked his head, a curtain of damp hair sliding forward to hide his expression. Sam and Cas share a brief moment in the rain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gloaming

**The Gloaming**

It had been raining for days.  Every time Castiel had descended to check on the Winchesters, it was to find himself in a city flooded by sheets of cold rain, driving endlessly against the windows of the Impala or the hotel room, rattling noisily in the low-hanging gutter.  Sam had told him it was normal for this part of the world, this time of year—Dean had only told him, _It doesn’t rain but it pours._ Castiel didn’t know if that were true.  He hadn’t spent enough time with his feet on the ground to know very much about how rain came down.

This time when he appeared, the hotel room was empty.  The sheets were crumpled in tangled piles on each bed, and Sam’s computer was still on the table, so Castiel was confident they hadn’t moved on yet.  A glance out the window showed the Impala was missing from the parking spot in front of the rooms; nothing moved on the long walkway under the awning or in the drizzle-gray parking lot, no sign of coming or going.  Castiel closed his eyes and reached out.  The sense of Sam came to him, perhaps half a mile away.  Castiel opened his wings again without searching out Dean as well.

He appeared a few steps behind Sam, on the rainy sidewalk of a long bridge over a slate-gray river, the tires of passing cars hissing in the puddles.  Sam was walking away from him with his hands in his pockets, hair plastered down against his neck, his hunched shoulders pushing a drenched tan coat up toward his ears.  He was the only one out in the rain.  Castiel watched him for a moment before blinking into physical form again at his side.

“Hello, Sam.”

Sam started at his sudden appearance, wheeling to face the angel as he took a step back toward the railing of the bridge.  Then recognition lit his face, and Sam gave a long exhale, one hand rising to rub the space over his startled heart.

"Cas,” he said.  He attempted a little smile, but Castiel could tell that it was forced—it fell away from his face far too quickly.  Sam raked a hand back through his wet hair.  “Sorry—I didn’t leave a note or anything.  At the hotel.”

“It wasn’t necessary,” Castiel assured him.  Then he squinted down the sidewalk in either direction, letting his grace flare out to enhance the search.  “Dean is not here,” he said, somewhat surprised.  Sam just shrugged, pressing his lips together in a way that Castiel had learned meant he and Dean had been arguing again, that the fight was still raw between them.  It was a little unsettling that he had learned that so quickly.  Castiel turned his face up to the sky.  “You are out in the rain,” he observed.

Sam shrugged again.  “Yep.”

Castiel tipped his head to one side.  “You are cold.  I will convey you to the hotel.”

He lifted one hand to do so, wings already poised at his back—but before he could touch Sam’s forehead, the young man took a step back, his legs hitting the wet metal of the railing.  “No—Cas, it’s okay,” Sam told him, waving his assistance away.  “I’m not stuck out here.  I was just… taking a walk in the rain.  It’s something people do sometimes, to clear their heads.”

Castiel narrowed his eyes, something like concern flickering within him.  “Dean was angry with me the last time I let you walk back to the hotel in the rain.”

Sam ducked his head, a curtain of damp hair sliding forward to hide his expression.  “Trust me, I don’t think he’d even care right now,” Sam whispered under his breath.  The words got lost in the rush of wet tires and the ripple of the rain on the river below them; if Castiel were not an angel, he wouldn’t have heard them at all.  Perhaps Sam thought he had not.  The young man lifted his head again after a moment and gave Castiel the same strained smile, the one that didn’t light his eyes.  “I just needed to get out of the hotel room for a little while, and Dean has the car, so…”

Castiel felt his eyebrows draw together.  “Have you been abandoned, Sam?” he asked quietly.  Sam didn’t answer, so he pressed farther, taking a step toward the young man and pinning his evasive eyes.  “Has your brother gone somewhere without you?”

“It’s fine, Cas,” Sam said, turning his face away until all he could see was the river.  Castiel pressed his lips together and wondered if _It’s fine_ from Sam meant the same thing as when Dean said _Fuck off_.  The angel retreated to his former position.

“Do you want me to leave, Sam?”

Sam’s eyes snapped back to Castiel’s face.  He didn’t say anything, but there was something vulnerable about his expression, his cheeks damp from the falling rain, his eyes dark with the gathering dusk.  Somehow it reminded Castiel of an open wound, gaping and sore even once the bleeding had stopped.  He did not ask again.

A truck rumbled across the bridge at Castiel’s back, its headlights sweeping over Sam’s face; the hunter lifted a hand to shield his eyes and then turned back to the river, resting his elbows against the wrought iron of the railing, motionless even after the truck had disappeared.  Castiel watched him in silence.  A drop of rain slid down from the angel’s hair and followed the line of his nose until it tumbled to the sidewalk, and Castiel found himself fascinated with the sensation, the particularity of one drop of rain in one space in the world.  He was so intent on the feeling of rain on his shoulders that he almost didn’t hear Sam speak.

“Do you think it’s pretty, Cas?”

Castiel turned his attention back to the young man at the railing; Sam still wasn’t looking at him.  “Is what pretty?” he asked.

Sam threw a hand out in front of him, indicating the river, the ships docked along the shore, the distant glow of lights from the center of the city, before his hand flopped back to rest against the railing, those fingers stiff with cold, Castiel was sure, in spite of how loose they seemed.  He didn’t ask about it.  He just stepped forward to stand at Sam’s side and looked out over the gloom, the fog curling up in tongues from the surface of the river, the distant lights of early streetlamps shining on damp streets, the whisper of the rain all over the graying world.  Then he looked back at Sam, studying the slice of his face illuminated, ever so briefly, by the headlights of oncoming cars.

Pretty was not a word Castiel often reached for.  Beautiful or majestic or holy—these were words he understood.  Pretty was different from these.  Pretty was a word that Sam used, a little cadence that stood out in his sentences, transient like a drawn breath.  Castiel had only ever heard Sam use it, that word.  So _pretty_ had become associated with Sam in Castiel’s mind, and the meaning of _pretty_ was shaped by that association—pretty things were different than beautiful things, more fleeting, more uncertain.  Pretty things were somehow brittle, but they were still precious—more precious, perhaps, because they were so tenuous.  So fragile.

Castiel looked back out at the gloaming.

“Yes,” he said.  “It is pretty.”

Sam tucked his chin into his chest.  The rain fell steadily all around them, becoming a shower of silver spears as the lights came on, all of the streetlamps along the bridge illuminating one by one.  Castiel’s eyes dropped to study Sam’s hands gripping the black railing.

“Your hands are cold,” he said.  Sam said nothing, but his fingers tightened around the metal.  Castiel closed his eyes.  Then he reached out and covered Sam’s hands with one of his, massaging his thumb across those frozen knuckles.  Sam’s lips twitched over a little smile.

“So are yours,” he said.  But he didn’t pull away, and for the time being Castiel was content with that.  Sam was cold now, but he wouldn’t be forever.  Castiel would wait until Sam was ready to borrow his wings.


End file.
